Criterion (ii): The creation of Swedish architects Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz at Skogskyrkogården established a new form of cemetery that has exerted a profound influence on cemetery design throughout the world. a b James Codrington (April 1976). "Sigurd Lewerentz 1885–1975". The Architectural Review. CLIX (950): 223. Within the boundaries of the 108.08 ha property are located all the elements necessary to express the Outstanding Universal Value of Skogskyrkogården, including the landscape dominated by a forest of tall pine trees, the Woodland Chapel (1920), the service building designed by Asplund (1923-24), the Chapel of Resurrection designed by Lewerentz (1925), the group of three chapels (Faith, Hope, and the Holy Cross) with common mortuary and crematorium facilities designed by Asplund (1937-1940), the granite cross on the lawn outside the chapels designed by Asplund, and the 4 km-long surrounding granite wall. Its boundaries adequately ensure the complete representation of the features and processes that convey the property’s significance. There is no buffer zone. The property does not suffer unduly from adverse effects of development and/or neglect. A potential threat to the overall experience of the property is the spread of various tree diseases, which can severely damage plantings. Campo-Ruiz, Ingrid (2015). Construction as a Prototype: the Novel Approach by Sigurd Lewerentz to Using Building Materials, Especially in Walls and Windows, 1920-72. Construction History 30 Nov (2015): 67-86. ISSN 0267-7768.

Ridderstedt, Lars.(1998). Adversus populum: Peter Celsings och Sigurd Lewerentz sakralarkitektur 1945-1975: (the religious architecture of Peter Celsing and Sigurd Lewerentz 1945-1975). Uppsala: Uppsala University, 1998.MFI was wondering whether Asplund’s death, in 1940, might have freed up Lewerentz’s imagination in some way? In this second installment of his revamped “ Beyond London” column for ArchDaily, Simon Henley of London-based practice Henley Halebrown discusses a potential influence that might help UK architects combat the economic hegemony currently afflicting the country – turning for moral guidance to the Brutalists of the 1960s. It opened in 1913, one of Lewerentz’s first executed works. As British architect John Stewart recently wrote, it “had a freshness and clarity of expression which was more typical of his later Functionalist work than his early Classicism.” The office building for the Riksförsäkringsverket, the National Insurance Board [1932], was decisively important as well. It’s categorically different from other modern office buildings; it’s a palazzo type, in a way, with three facades facing the city—all more or less identical, one with the entrance in it—and then an oval glass curtain-walled interior. There’s nothing like it in Sweden. Long, Kieran, Johan Örn, and Mikael Andersson, editors (2021). Sigurd Lewerentz. Architect of Death and Life. Zürich: Park Books AG, 2021. (ISBN 9783038602323)

Edited by Kieran Long, Director of ArkDes, and Johan Örn, curator of collections at ArkDes, and co-edited by Mikael Andersson, architectural historian and critic, this landmark book will be a significant moment of reassessment. An accompanying exhibition opening at ArkDes on 1st October 2021, curated by Kieran Long and designed by Caruso St John, will be the first major monographic exhibition of Lewerentz’s work in over 30 years. The architects’ use of the natural landscape created an extraordinary tranquil beauty environment that had a profound influence on cemetery design throughout the world.The basis for the route through the cemetery is a long route leading from the ornamental colonnaded entrance that then splits, one way leading through a pastoral landscape, complete with a large pond and a tree-lined meditation hill, and the other up to a large detached granite cross and the abstract portico of the crematorium and the chapels of the Holy Cross, Faith, and Hope. The main auditorium features both delicate design touches and technical innovations. These include a revolving stage, maple paneling, red upholstered seats, and wood partitions that can be deployed using rails embedded in the ceiling to reduce the size of the venue. In addition, the vertically adjustable fore-stage can descend to provide further audience seats or recess into an orchestra pit. The outer vestibule is separated from the inner by large swing-doors of glass. In the inner vestibule are the cloakrooms, the counters of which have a total length of nearly 400 feet. In the middle of the vestibule, flanked by two broad marble stairs, which lead up to the foyer, stands Thalia, a work by Bror Marklund; he presents her full of life and, in deliberate contrast to convention, as slightly vulgar. The staircases leading up to the foyer are bounded by a white wrought-metal railing, which also runs round the foyer. This balustrade is repeated in the balcony. Along the inner wall of the foyer, beneath the balcony, runs a long series of concertina-doors which lead to the auditorium, while four doors in the inner vestibule lead to the lower stalls. Another three doors connect the foyer with a terrace communicating with the restaurant terrace, which seats 200 guests. Those unfamiliar with Sigurd Lewerentz may be intrigued by how he is characterised in books and articles. Despite being one of Sweden’s most admired modernist architects, he is regularly described as ‘enigmatic’, ‘mythical’ or even ‘obscure’. Born in Bjärtrå, northern Sweden, in 1885, Lewerentz was indeed a quiet figure; he published almost nothing about his built projects, and would reject invitation after invitation to speak at international events – a stark contrast to his publicity-savvier contemporaries, such as architect Erik Gunnar Asplund.Criterion (iv): The merits of Skogskyrkogården lie in its qualities as an early 20th century landscape and architectural design adapted to a cemetery. This substantial, beautifully designed book offers the most comprehensive survey to date of Lewerentz’s achievements in all fields of his multifaceted work. Colin St. John Wilson, paraphrasing E.M. Forster’s impression of the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy, said it was “as if he stood at a slight angle to the world.” It is not ‘a building’, it is ‘a library’, written in the archives. Aiming to go beyond mythologies, hagiographies and interpretations, the focus is not only on Lewerentz’s work, but also his life, and the perspective is historiographical. Who was Sigurd Lewerentz? Where did his extraordinary work come from? How are we to understand it? These are some of the questions the book intends to answer. ‘We hope to bring forward a new baseline of evidence for this most mythologised of architects and to provoke fresh insights into his legacy,’ Long writes in his introduction: ‘It is this possibility of a ‘conversation across time’ that Lewerentz holds out to us.’ Between Lewerentz’s early work and the last magnus opus, there is a whole life of evolutions and progressive insights, a life full of engagement within society.

In the end, it is the solemn aspect of Lewerentz that most defines him. With St Peter’s, Adam Caruso has said: “He is compelling us to confront the condition of our existence, all of the time.” But without his sensuous and playful side, Lewerentz’s spirituality would become ponderous and his solemnity tedious. For, after all, frivolity is also part of existence. Fernández Elorza, Héctor. Asplund versus Lewerentz. (2014). Doctoral Thesis, Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The architect tapped into his graphic design skills to fashion the fair’s distinctive wing-shaped logo (a symbolic nod to the idea that Swedish society was moving forward), but also found himself designing exhibition stands, temporary cafés and display homes of the future, as well as the wallpaper, furnishings and musical instruments that he imagined would appear inside. ‘He was involved in the life of the city; not as his functionalist colleagues were. He was always interested in our shallow selves,’ explains Long. ‘I also think it’s to do with imagining the reality of human life – there are a few architects who do that. Architects of the modern period tend to see humanity as a problem to be solved, whereas Lewerentz saw us in our appetites.’ Sigurd Lewerentz is probably the most significant architect of the modern period in Sweden. Best known for his poetic cemetery landscapes, and for the two extraordinary churches of St Mark’s, Björkhagen and St Peter’s, Klippan, Lewerentz’s work has always been shrouded in myth and has provoked passionate reactions in critics and architects around the world.

Campo-Ruiz, Ingrid (2015). From Tradition to Innovation: Lewerentz’s Designs of Ritual Spaces in Sweden, 1914-1966. The Journal of Architecture 20/1 (2015): 73-91. ISBN 978-1-138-80283-4. DOI:10.1080/13602365.2015.1009483. The exhibition and the book are the result of four years of research. The majority of the objects in the exhibition are drawn from ArkDes’ own formidable collection, which will be shown alongside hitherto unknown or never previously exhibited objects that have been discovered in travels by the research team across the country.